“PDP Leaders Are Idiots” – Iyabo Obasanjo

By Ayodele Oni 

A daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Iyabo, has described leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) “idiots” as she publicly justified her defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

In a no-holds-barred appearance on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese Ijebu, Iyabo Obasanjo, a former senator, accused PDP power brokers of arrogance, political shortsightedness, and treating prominent members as disposable tools.

“I think they’re idiots, if you can put it that way. If elections are about people and you don’t reach out to the people who are prominent in your party, how do you win elections? You can’t,” she said against the background of the claim that party leaders only reached out to her during elections.

Obasanjo, who recently re-emerged into partisan politics after nearly 15 years abroad in academia, insisted she was neither courted nor pressured by the APC.

“APC never approached me. I made a choice. I analyzed the situation. I left PDP because I wasn’t comfortable there.”

According to her, PDP leaders only remembered her when elections approached — not out of respect, but out of need.

“The only time I got a call from them was when elections were coming. Somebody from the presidency reached out. How transactional is that? I dropped the phone. You only remember people when you need them.

“I left and nobody cared to ask why. At the level I left, nobody cared. The individuals there are not people I want to associate with.”

She suggested that the party’s inability to manage relationships within its own leadership circle reflects why it struggles electorally.

“If you can’t care for people in your own leadership team, how can you care for the ordinary person on the street?”, she asked pointedly.

Obasanjo disclosed that she had long contemplated leaving the PDP, but delayed doing so because her father was still a leading figure in the party at the time. 

Now that the former president has publicly severed ties with the PDP, she said she feels politically unrestrained.

“He tore his party card. I’m a free agent,” she said.

Having lost her Senate re-election bid in 2011 to Gbenga Obadara of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Obasanjo withdrew from frontline politics and relocated to the United States, where she rose to become a professor. 

Her return now — and the ferocity of her remarks — signal that she is not stepping back quietly.